Surreal Wanderings in the Exotic City of Light
As I was wandering around the Musée d'Orsay, I came to a dead stop before a painting. I pretended to sneeze, as I didn’t want people around me to see that I was crying. I’d seen it many times before. Or a replica of it. One of my friends had replicated a part of this painting on a tall piece of canvas. Somehow, while I’d always admired her painting skills, I’d never bothered to find out who the original painter was, as it had always been there. Now, I bent down to find out the painter’s name at last. Les Muses by Maurice Denis. Unfortunately, my friend and mentor had left this world too early, so I couldn’t share this piece of news with her. But did this painting belong to Maurice Denis, the museum, or to a person such as myself, because it was part of my memories, growing up in a faraway land called India? I got the impression that neither Maurice Denis, since he had the soul of an artist, nor the Muses themselves would mind if I claimed it for myself. At least, theoretically, in my head. Though I can’t pretend to understand all these theories, was it a case of quantum entanglement with this painting a long time ago, when I first saw it in childhood, so perhaps it wasn’t surprising that eventually I did come face to face with it on one of my many visits to the French capital? Perhaps, it’s an oxymoron to say the best surprises are ones that aren’t planned.
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Is it a good idea to read too many books about a city? I couldn’t help asking myself. Did ghosts of painters and sculptors past gather at twilight at the Musee d’Orsay to argue about which among them was the best artist, jostling aside the ghosts of passengers who’d missed their trains in that elegant station in the even further past? Did surreal whistles echo in those halls with high ceilings after dusk had crept up on the rails to take firm hold of the train station, where art-works remained stationary, waiting for throngs of admirers, curiosity seekers, or snobs to take their selfies next to them so that they’d live again in the digital age through thousands of photos?
Did people who organized their parties at this chic museum ever think about phantoms who might be salivating over their pink salmon sushis and petits fours alike?
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Speaking of gourmet food, there’s a chic restaurant high up on the Eiffel Tower that needs to be reserved well in advance. One would need to dish out lots of cash to enjoy half an asparagus, a sliver of salmon, with a brush-stroke of mustard on the side, served according to the precepts of nouvelle cuisine. It would be best to keep some edibles in the hotel room, in case of hunger afterwards.
But I couldn’t help thinking of the 2015 fantastical film, Tomorrowland, and wouldn’t it be exciting to meet Verne at the Jules Verne restaurant, if I ever got there? I wondered what Jules Verne would think of the films made from his works, such as the 2008 Journey to the Center of the Earth? Would he be delighted or disgusted?
Jacques Tardi, the writer of the graphic novel, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc Sec, loved the sets created by Luc Besson for his film of the same name, and even used to invite guests to visit Adele Blanc Sec’s apartment created for the film.
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Of course, after having watched Bresson’s The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc Sec, walking past the Louvre is a very different experience at night. One’s head turns at every suspicious sound of quick steps on crunching leaves, lest mummies had decided to go for a walk. But nostalgia for Egypt could be cured by a quick visit to the Concorde and the obelisk there.
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Unlike scenes in the Immortal Instruments novels of YA writer Cassandra Clare, all sorts of exciting things can happen in abandoned sites or cemeteries. Though once, while researching Hector Berlioz, I ended up in the wrong cemetery. I looked everywhere at the Montparnasse Cemetery for Berlioz’s grave, but he wasn’t listed on the paper that the guardian showed me. What should I do with the bunch of flowers in my hand? Somehow, despite being a dry man in a black suit, full of existential despair, Sartre had gotten more than his fair share of flowers over the decades. Would he have even approved of flowers on his grave? Ditto for Simone de Beauvoir. So, I sort of went hunting for a suitable person on whose grave I could deposit the flowers. After half an hour of searching, I finally found someone who’d founded a music school and given free music lessons to children of the neighbourhood. Who knew when the last time was that someone had put any flowers there, so it seemed like a good idea to leave the bouquet on his grave.
No, in the end, I wasn’t able to visit the grave of Berlioz on the visit as I had too many other places to visit during that short trip, but then his grave wouldn’t be disappearing anytime soon. I’d found the first part of his opera Les Troyennes to be very moving. Though I wasn’t a refugee, I was quite far from home on a different continent (by choice), but still, I could understand the plight of the fleeing Trojans. I’ve often wondered if the myth of the Trojan, Paris has anything to do with the city’s name? Especially as Pharos or phare in French, means lighthouse. And there is a massive lighthouse of sorts, i.e., the Eiffel Tower, (telling the world where to find it) in Paris.
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It was fun to stand on Point Zero outside Notre Dame after reading the YA novel, The Alchemyst (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel) by Michael Scott. But there was zero hope of being able to time travel from that point. Ditto for the Sacré-Coeur Cathedral, after reading the same book.
While panting up the stairs to go to the Sacré-Coeur Cathedral, I decided to have my lunch of Indian biryani on one of the benches, placed in a nook conveniently halfway up. Some of the pigeons were sniffing at the ground there. I threw down some rice for them. Being Parisian, they just sniffed at the rice very snootily. Perhaps they didn’t like the strange smell of the spices and turned their heads haughtily away from it. Since I was speaking to my mum on the phone, I told her that the news of the day was that Paris pigeons didn’t like Indian food. We couldn’t help laughing at their snobbish attitude. It was the first time I’d seen a bird reject any sort of grains. After a while, an adventurous pigeon cautiously tasted a grain. It quickly started picking up and eating the other grains of rice. Other pigeons joined in this feast. Unfortunately by that time, I’d almost finished my lunch-box, so couldn’t give them more. In this case, their late reaction/appreciation meant they’d lost the Indian rice. The view from the top justified the climb, snobbish pigeons notwithstanding.
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While wandering around the Louvre, I couldn’t help thinking of YA writer Rick Riordan’s The Kane Chronicles book series, involving ancient Egypt and teens in contemporary America, who may have visited the Louvre. Also, of his Heroes of Olympus book series in the Greco-Roman section. However, no scrunchy teens appeared to blow up ancient artifacts by magic. From one of his blog posts, it seems that Rick Riordan enjoyed his visit to the Louvre too.
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I wondered what the characters of the graphic novels would have thought of the 2018 exhibition Archaeology Goes Graphic at the Petite Galerie at the Louvre. Would they come alive at the dead of night, like in the film, Night At the Museum? I suppose due to copyright violations, that particular book could never be written. Nevertheless, that exhibition was a dream come true for anyone writing mythical fantasy. Not only did I get titles of interesting graphic novels, but it opened my eyes to the different ways in which myths and ruins have been explored in stories. Why are French writers still so fascinated by ancient sites and myths? Was it because Napoleon was one of the first European leaders to set up the Institut français d'archéologie orientale (or IFAO), also known as the French Institute for Oriental Archaeology in Cairo, and Champollion was the first person to decode the Egyptian hieroglyphs? Did some French writers feel obliged to keep that particular flame burning? Whatever the case, I wished some of these graphic novels would be translated into English.
With post-colonial thinking, many of the treasures of the Louvre (and other museums) are seen as plundered goods. It would be a huge turning point in history if they were ever returned to their countries of origin. Perhaps exact replicas could replace them in European or American museums so that the locals would have a chance to view them in any case. Would that happen before the walls of the Louvre fell down? I couldn’t help thinking of Hubert Robert’s 1796 painting, Grande Galerie in the Louvre in Ruins. Luckily, the Louvre is still standing 225 years later. But when will its ‘treasures’ go back to their original countries?
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Sometimes, one doesn’t have to search. I accidentally came across one of the apartments where Hemingway lived for a short time in the Latin Quarter. At least that’s what was written on the plaque on the building next to the book shop, which had attracted me in the first place. Somehow that completed the circle that had begun when I’d started reading his books in faraway India in the burning heat of the summer holidays. It seemed like I’d closed a loop of some kind as I stood there gazing up, trying to guess when he may have written his books, and what he would have thought of the view from the top of that building. Though his ego was larger than life, like the man himself, would he have imagined that tourists from faraway places such as India would stand there, nearly a hundred years later, gawking at the nondescript building simply because he’d spent a few months in those cramped quarters?
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On the one hand, some people visit Paris because it’s a status symbol for them, yet others do so to build memories with their loved ones. Yet others go there to soak in the bygone literary era of when Hemingway and Ezra Pound were pounding away at their typewriters there. Millions took the Da Vinci tour, but I resisted that temptation. Perhaps I just like to discover and dream of the past and of surreal events in books in a haphazard way. Though I may have missed Berlioz’s grave due to disorganization, yet it was fun to suddenly come across the building where Hemingway lived in a tiny apartment at the top. Almost like bumping into the faint ghost of a writer. Can fiction writers afford to be too organized? If they don’t chase tails of far-flung possibilities, wouldn’t they end up missing bits of inspiration, which could lead to other tales? And aren’t tourists telling themselves stories whenever they visit a city with so many layers of art, fashion, design, perfumes, history, literature, and magic in it? It’s just that some contes are different than others.